Dear HCN,
The conservation groups
of Wyoming would like to phase out the 23 Wyoming elk feedgrounds
(HCN, 4/29/02: Are Wyoming’s feedgrounds a hotbed of disease?).
Well, I was a member of several of the Wyoming conservation groups
as you call them, and I was never asked to support the phaseout of
the Wyoming feedgrounds. If we phase out the feedgrounds, the elk
population in Wyoming will crash.
The feedgrounds
were set up to protect the large populations of elk and to prevent
the large swings in population caused by winter death. These
feedgrounds have been operating for over 100 years and there have
been no large diseases except for brucellosis, which was given to
the elk from livestock. By eliminating the feedgrounds you still
will not eliminate all disease, because the elk is a herding animal
and will travel to winter areas and stay there, if there is an area
they can go to.
You cannot have wildlife in a
natural state in the mountain valleys as long as the humans are
there, and the public doesn’t want a token amount of wildlife for
them to view. The public lands are multiple-use lands, not the
lands of the conservationists and elitists to enjoy and the public
to support.
It is now time for the hunters to
stand up for the elk, deer and big-game populations and tell all
these conservation groups enough is enough.
Dale Gillespie
Rock Springs,
Wyoming
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Feedgrounds are necessary.
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